| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of
production must bring with it the abolition of the community
of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution
both public and private.
The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish
countries and nationality.
The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what
they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all
acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of
the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far,
itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.
The Communist Manifesto |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: purpose of your satyr's praises, for all this long story is only an
ingenious circumlocution, of which the point comes in by the way at the
end; you want to get up a quarrel between me and Agathon, and your notion
is that I ought to love you and nobody else, and that you and you only
ought to love Agathon. But the plot of this Satyric or Silenic drama has
been detected, and you must not allow him, Agathon, to set us at variance.
I believe you are right, said Agathon, and I am disposed to think that his
intention in placing himself between you and me was only to divide us; but
he shall gain nothing by that move; for I will go and lie on the couch next
to you.
Yes, yes, replied Socrates, by all means come here and lie on the couch
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: essential courtesy was the more rigidly exacted; the new arrival
had to feel the pulse of the society; and a breach of its undefined
observances was promptly punished. A man might be as plain, as
dull, as slovenly, as free of speech as he desired; but to a touch
of presumption or a word of hectoring these free Barbizonians were
as sensitive as a tea-party of maiden ladies. I have seen people
driven forth from Barbizon; it would be difficult to say in words
what they had done, but they deserved their fate. They had shown
themselves unworthy to enjoy these corporate freedoms; they had
pushed themselves; they had "made their head"; they wanted tact to
appreciate the "fine shades" of Barbizonian etiquette. And once
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: neither good horses, nor a firm seat, nor splendour of equipment will
be of any use at all.
[7] Lit. "so that whilst least likely to be wounded themselves, they
may most be able to injure the enemy."
The general of cavalry,[8] as patron of the whole department, is
naturally responsible for its efficient working. In view, however, of
the task imposed upon that officer had he to carry out these various
details single-handed, the state has chosen to associate[9] with him
certain coadjutors in the persons of the phylarchs (or tribal
captains),[10] and has besides imposed upon the senate a share in the
superintendence of the cavalry. This being so, two things appear to me
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